The invention relates to a carrying belt conveyor for conveying material to be conveyed, in particular loaded pallets, having a rail system which comprises at least one floor-based carrying rail, at least one transport car which may be moved in a transport direction on the carrying rail, and which comprises a travel mechanism having a travel unit which leads in the transport direction and a travel unit which follows in the transport direction, which travel units are connected by a frame structure and are guided in each case by the carrying rail, and which further comprises a carrying device for material to be conveyed.
The invention moreover relates to a conveyor arrangement for conveying material to be conveyed, which comprises a carrying belt conveyor and at least one further conveyor system.
Carrying belt conveyors of the type mentioned at the outset are frequently used in conveyor arrangements which, in addition to the carrying belt conveyor, comprise further conveyor systems which operate on a principle which deviates from the carrying belt conveyor. Thus, for example, in addition to the carrying belt conveyor, the conveyor arrangement can also include roller conveyors, carrying-chain conveyors or comparable conveyors operating with continuous drive means or the like.
Consequently, in order to move the material to be conveyed and therefore, for example, loaded or possibly also unloaded pallets through the entire conveyor arrangement by means of a plurality of intrinsically independent conveyor systems, the material to be conveyed has to be transferred from the carrying belt conveyor to a conveyor system of a different design at a given time on its path through the conveyor arrangement.
To this end, in the commercially known carrying belt conveyors of the type mentioned at the outset, a separate conveyor device or transfer unit, e.g. a roller conveyor module, a carrying-chain conveyor module or comparable conveyor modules or, for example, a telescopic unit, which receives the material to be conveyed during its transportation through the carrying belt conveyor, is constructed on the frame structure. However, a design of this type calls for a relatively tall construction in relation to the level of the floor and a correspondingly high transportation level for the material to be conveyed.
However, in floor-based conveyor systems, the overall heights realised are generally as low as possible to eliminate the need for supporting structures which have a high material requirement and are therefore expensive. This means that the further conveyor systems often transport the material to be conveyed at a lower level than the carrying belt conveyors of the type mentioned at the outset.
It is therefore either necessary to design suitable transfer devices which transfer the material to be conveyed from the carrying belt conveyer to another conveyor system. However, this results in a relatively low capacity of the conveyor arrangement since the increased complexity involved in conveying the material to be conveyed causes time to be lost. Moreover, separate transfer devices increase both the installation costs and the operating costs of the arrangement.
Alternatively all the conveyor systems of a conveyor arrangement which operate together have to be adapted to one another so that the material to be conveyed is conveyed at the same level by all the different conveyor systems. However, when using commercially known carrying belt conveyors, this means that the other conveyor systems have to be “jacked up”, as it were, which likewise drives costs upwards.
An object of the invention, therefore, is to provide a carrying belt conveyor and a conveyor arrangement of the type mentioned at the outset such that they each meet these concerns.